New Jawbone Headset: More Comfortable, Better Sound, Flashy Colors

Harry McCracken — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 02:05:02 +0000

I feel like I should start anything I write about headsets with a disclaimer: I’ve still never met one I can love unreservedly. I have trouble getting them to stay in my ear; I find myself having to futz with buttons and Bluetooth; and sound quality, of course, remains variable. That said, I admire what Aliph has done over the past few years with its Jawbone headset. And tonight the company is announcing Jawbone Prime, a new version that replaces the eleven-month-old Jawbone 2. I’ve only spent a little time with the new model so far, but it aims to improve on its predecessor on all the above fronts: comfort, control, Bluetooth, and sound quality.

The basic industrial design hasn’t really changed: It’s still small and stylish (as befits its $130 price). But a new indentation–which is very subtle–makes it a bit easier for your finger to find the button you use for functions such as turning the headset on and off.

Earloops are the bane of my phone-using existence–I can never figure out how to get them over my ear–and while the Jawbone Prime comes with one, it attempts to let most people do without it by providing six rubber earbuds in three different sizes. Three of the buds have a sort of nub that helps to lodge the bud in your ear, and it seems to work well–I was able to shake my head back and forth vigorously without the Jawbone flying out.

The single most important thing about any headset, of course, is that you can hear and be heard. I haven’t used the new Jawbone enough to judge whether it’s an advance on the old one, but Aliph claims much better sound quality in a variety of environments, from quiet areas to ones with a jackhammer blasting in the background. The Jawbone’s noise reduction works best if you let the tip touch your face, but the company says that the Prime works far better than earlier models if it loses contact. It’s also the first Jawbone that aims specifically to help with wind. (Although the company is guarded about its promise there–the headset’s packaging says in one place that it “Eliminates Noise, but another label states merely that it “Reduces Wind Noise.”

This is also the first Jawbone that supports multipoint Bluetooth–letting you use it with two phones at once. And it comes in a total of seven colors, including understated platinum, black, and brown, and four not-understated-at-all “Ear Candy” colors:

As a Californian, I can’t avoid headsets altogether unless I flout state law or never use my phone while driving. I recently bought one that’s a sort of anti-Jawbone: a cheap, ugly wired model with no advanced features whatsoever. I bought it mostly to try and sidestep-Bluetooth related issues, including the need to charge the headset and establish a wireless connection with my phone. (Aliph, incidentally, says that talk time for the new Jawbone is about the old as for the old one–4.5 hours.) But over the next few weeks, I’m going to do a personal faceoff between the wired headset’s old, unglamorous technology and everything that the Jawbone Prime promises. I may never have fallen in love with any headset, but I’ve got an open mind…

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Apple Rumors: Fun, Pointless, Evil…or All of the Above?

Harry McCracken — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 18:22:48 +0000

The Daily Mail’s iPhone “scoop” has inspired posts about Apple rumors. And posts about posts about Apple rumors. And posts about posts about Apple rumors, ad infinitum. This and other news after the jump.

The iPhone Rumor Mill
The UK’s Daily Mail ignited a minor firestorm when it reported that Apple will release a cheaper, more basic “iPhone Nano” in time for Christmas. Most bloggers who know what the heck they’re talking about say that the story sounds improbable; some bash the Mail and contend that it’s manufacturing rumors to generate traffic at its Website. I still think that if Apple history holds true to form, Apple will release such a phone at some point–but it will do so in a way that has little or nothing to do with the scenario outlined in the Mail’s story.

Read more at: Apple 2.0, ZDNet, Guardian.co.uk, TechCrunch UK

Life After Windows
Chatter continues on “Midori,” the Internet operating system that Microsoft is supposedly working on as an eventual Windows replacement. (Microsoft says that Midori exists, but that it’s “in incubation” and therefore not ready for public discussion.) The fascinating thing about Midori is that it’s impossible to discuss it without discussing a world that isn’t dominated by PCs running Windows. Just a few years ago, it was hard to figure out the road map that would result in such a scenario. Today, between cloud computing, the rise of Google, the resurgence of the Mac, and the evolution of the cell phone into a personal computer, the main question about the end of Windows’ reign is not if but when.

Read more at: BBC , Ars Technica

Cheap Headsets for the Criminal Class
Good news for folks who live in states (such as my home of California) that require hands-free use of cell phones while driving, but who don’t plan to obey the law: Aliph, manufacturer of the cool and popular Jawbone Bluetooth wireless headset, will give you twenty bucks off a new Jawbone if you’re caught ignoring it. (The Jawbone must be purchased online at Aliph’s site.) Clever idea, but I feel sad for the good, upstanding, law-abiding citizens who never violate the law in the first place and must therefore pay more for their Jawbones than those who choose a life of crime.

Read more at: The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Mercora No More-a
Social.fm, the music service formerly known as Mercora, has ceased operations. The company was always full of interesting ideas, but never settled on one business model, let alone one name. It was originally launched as an eBay-like marketplace that would have let you bid on songs, then switched goals to become a peer-to-peer service that let you stream songs from other folks’ music collections. (It leveraged differences in Canadian copyright law vs. U.S. policy to do this legally, effectively importing music streams across the border.) Its Wikipedia entry says that its mission ended up being “to catalogue and organize the world’s music and make it universally searchable and legally listenable,” a knockoff of Google’s mission (“to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Too bad it never fulfilled it; let’s hope somebody else does someday.

Read more at: GigaOM

Graphics Power, Thy Name is Larrabee?
At this week’s SIGGRAPH graphics show, Intel is beginning to talk about Larrabee, a platform for graphics processors based on the good ol’ x86 architecture, with an unspecified number of cores. (Intel says that Larrabee will support “many” cores, but that won’t translate into anything on par with the hundreds of cores in ATI and NVidia’s next-generation chips.) The first products based on Larrabee won’t show up until late 2009 or 2010, and it may be even longer before ones aimed at garden-variety computer users who up, but hardcore games are already intrigued. So am I–even though I can’t hear the name “Larrabee” without thinking of Get Smart.

Read more at: Extreme Tech, New York Times

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Technologizer » Jawbone

New Jawbone Headset: More Comfortable, Better Sound, Flashy Colors

Apple Rumors: Fun, Pointless, Evil…or All of the Above?